NOW Foods & Supplements and Foods

The most difficult part of setting standards was establishing testing protocol that could analyze the potency and purity of nutritional ingredients. Natural supplements are by nature complex and few if any testing procedures had been established. That problem persists today and so does hostility from competitors. Yet this hasn't diminished the effort by the Richard family to lead in establishing ingredient standards. Recently NOW developed standards for th testing of chondroitin, SAMe and glucosamine that have been widely accepted by the scientific community. NOW has for three generations been a company with the highest integrity and top quality products. Today it is one of the nation's top three leaders in sales volume - the result of steady growth, solid purchasing strategy and careful nurturing.

NOW Foods has since 1998 been located in a 203,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Bloomingdale, Illinois, that includes among its 500 member staff, eight nutritionists and five PhDs. NOW has a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility that produces products that meet GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) and QAI (Quality Assurance International) standards. In addition, many of NOW's raw ingredients are Circle U Kosher certified, which is the highest degree of acceptance. Obtaining certification by these entities has required extensive inspection and conformation to rigid standards including a separate area for organic ingredients that also require microbial testing. NOW is one of the only natural food brands with an in-house microbiology lab. NOW also contains a full-blown testing lab with gas chromatographs, HPLC (high-pressure liquid chromatographs), Infrared spectrophotometer, ultraviolet/visible spectrometer, and mass spectrometry analytical capabilities. The tracking and shipping department is unlike anything I have ever seen and is so innovative and efficient, it has been the object of study by large companies outside the natural products industry.

NOW Foods offers tremendous value with its line of products. Retail prices are typically 25% to 40% below competitors. Most people assume that lower price equates to lower quality. Yet, NOW offers many patented products, some of which are in soft gelatin capsules, and the same identical product offered in other brands. They are also an innovator - many times being the first to offer a new ingredient - at initial offering usually quite costly to purchase. How do they manage to do this?

I was surprised to learn that NOW spends more money on quality control than they do on advertisment and marketing. This is highly unusual for a nationally branded product. Always a conservative company, NOW relies on forging partnerships with retailers through telemarketing and customer support. Retailers love NOW Products, not only because they can rely on top quality and prompt delivery, but because they can offer customers affordable health products. Retailers also appreciate the commitment to health maintenance, support of independent health food stores and ethical standards that has been the hallmark of the Richard family since 1948.

In the early years, NOW Foods had buying power through its sister company Fearn Foods. Today, NOW enjoys tremendous buying power because of its size and because of relationships that were forged years ago. NOW Foods also operates on a smaller profit margin than its competitors and this saving is passed directly onto consumers through retail partners. this infuriates companies whose sole purpose is to make money and they have tried every tactic in the book to discredit NOW porducts. However, the secret of NOW's success is out and I hope you will enjoy all the benefits of partnering with them. .......